Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Curse of the Surprise Pregnancy…

But first, a little update for inquiring minds. The short story is that I was scheduled for a D&C yesterday, but surprise, surprise, on Sunday, in the car on the way home from our Thanksgiving weekend, I was hit with horrendous cramps and by the time we got home I was bleeeeeeding. Not spotting, not brown smudges, but real bleeding. The doctor wasn’t ready to cancel, so I went in for a scan and blood test yesterday morning. I have to go back for another scan and test on Friday, to make sure things are progressing enough, but he doesn’t expect that I’ll need a D&C. And sure enough, my blood test revealed that my hcg dropped to about 1500, so that was good news. Now I just hope my boobs will clue in to what’s going on. They don’t hurt anymore, but they are still, shall we say, a bit bigger than usual.

Now onto our regularly scheduled program. Oh the irony. Everyone IRL, including my doctor, who knows what we’re dealing with seems to think it’s great that we managed to get pregnant. And I suppose it is. (I know there may be people reading this thinking “BITCH, she should be grateful she can at least GET pregnant!” But wait, let me ‘splain. As some of you may recall, just prior to finding out that I was pregnant we’d met with the doctor. He wanted to do one more blood test and schedule a hysterscopy. I was due to get my period so I would have been able to get all the additional tests done in early November, switch my health insurance in hopes of getting some additional IVF coverage, and have a break over the holidays. We expected to be resuming treatment (as in starting a new IVF) early in the new year. But now here we are at the end of November. I’ll be due to get my period just days before Christmas – when we won’t be here! Which means that I’ll have to postpone all the tests until January (at the earliest). Plus, it’s quite likely that I’ll be traveling for work in January (which I don’t normally do too much), meaning that I might have to wait even longer just to get the testing done, much less start a new cycle! But the real kicker – since we did manage to get pregnant on our own it is now highly unlikely that ANY insurance company will cover us for IVF. And let me just say, we can’t afford to keep doing this on our own. If we max out on our home equity line of credit we can probably swing one more IVF, but that’ll be it. I know at some point we’d need to draw the line anyway if IVF keeps failing or I have more miscarriages, but I HATE that we’ll be forced to make the decision based solely on finances. I know, I know, (a bitch again!) I know we’re so lucky to have the coverage we do have and to have had 50% coverage of three of our IVFs, and I know that many, many people would kill for that. But still I’m pissed.

Just wanted to let you know that for my new insurance, as of Jan, says "Benefits for IVF will be provided only when: You have unable to have a successful Pregnancy through reasonable, less costly, medically appropriate infertilty treatement". So I don't think getting pregnant will negate ~all~ insurance. I'm hoping for you!

Well, I suppose it's good news that you don't need the D&C but I'm sorry about the cramping and bleeding.

As for IVF coverage, you might be right. If it's based in Maryland (or something like that, LJ would know for sure b/c she educated herself on the details during her recent job search), then it basically states that you need to have been trying for 1 year in order to get IUI coverage and trying for 2 years in order to get IVF coverage. As you suspect, the clock starts over after a miscarriage. They consider a medically confirmed conception/pregnancy to be success enough by their definitions to restart the "trying" clock. I got screwed by this too after my first miscarriage back in 2005.

Having said that, for no good reason at all whatsoever, my insurance company DID decide to cover all 4 of our IUIs and 2 of our IVFs (we paid 100% of the 3rd IVF). They specifically told me they wouldn't pay since the requisite amt of time hadn't passed, but we submitted for approval for the hell of it anyway. Everyone was shocked when they paid for it.

So, no matter what your insurance company's rules are, go ahead and submit anyway to see if Lady Luck will smile on you (at least as far as insurance coverage is concerned -- I often wished that Lady Luck would have coffee with The Stork so they could fashion a plan of complete happiness for us).

I am glad you don't have to have a D&C but I'm so, so sorry about the miscarriage nonetheless, of course. I almost had the same issue with my insurance (no IVF coverage, but 50% IUI if you've been trying for a year). We applied for coverage, which you have to do in advance, got the coverage for three cycles, did one unsuccessful one and then got pregnant on our own, then miscarried. I watched the HCG numbers drop very slowly and was worried that the time frame of the coverage would run out before the numbers came to zero. I agree with other commenters though that there is sometimes a human element to insurance, and a kind person can do the unexpected. Oh, the fun of insurance.